Gabrielle Lessard, Legal Director

Gabrielle Lessard  provides legal representation to community-based organizations and offers technical support and other resources to legal-services program attorneys engaged in community economic-development projects. She brings to the Insight Center extensive expertise in counseling nonprofit clients in formation, tax exemption, and operating issues, as well as experience representing business clients in variety of transactions. Gabrielle has worked on a diverse array of community-development projects, including the negotiation and enforcement of a project-based local hiring agreement on a major freeway construction project, operation of a CDC micro-lending program, and the development of business plans for cooperative ventures employing street children in Quito, Ecuador. She also has extensive experience in policy analysis and advocacy in healthcare, other public-benefit programs, and issues affecting immigrant communities. Gabrielle was awarded a Skadden Fellowship in 1993 and worked for the Insight Center as a Staff Attorney/Skadden Fellow from 1993 to 1996. As a fellow, she authored several white papers on welfare reform and contributed to a variety of publications and reports, including a report on sectoral intervention in the construction industry and a chapter on Targeting High Growth Jobs in Six Strategies for Self-Sufficiency, published by Wider Opportunities for Women.   

Gabrielle received her Juris Doctor degree in 1992 from the University of Wisconsin, where she was an articles editor for the Wisconsin Law Review. She received her degree with honors and was inducted into the Order of the Coif legal honor society. She has been an active member of the California Bar since 1993.    

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